The present disclosure relates generally to medical imaging devices. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to medical image processing systems and methods.
Medical imaging systems and devices are used to observe, identify, and examine internal aspects of a patient. One conventional system is ultrasonography (i.e., ultrasound imaging systems). As applied to medical imaging, ultrasound imaging systems have a wide range of uses: from during gestation to observe fetal development to the examination of sports-related injuries (e.g., a torn anterior cruciate ligament), and many others. Ultrasound imaging systems have wide applicability that provide physicians with a non-invasive diagnostic and prognostic tool.
Ultrasound imaging systems utilize high frequency sound transducers that produce high frequency sound waves. The high frequency sound waves are able to penetrate a patient and impact their organs, bones, blood, etc. Upon impact, the organs, bones, blood, etc. ricochet the sound waves back to the transducer where the ricocheted sound waves (i.e., echoes) are transformed into an ultrasound image. Conventional ultrasound imaging systems have several signal and image processing stages where the post-detection imaging parameters such as gain, dynamic range, persistence, compounding and spatial filters are set to either constant or variable values. The result of such filters is an attempt to generate a relatively clear image. However, often times, the image contains a relatively high amount of noise (e.g., electrostatic frequency) that renders portions of the image unclear. As a result, many physicians have to acquire additional ultrasound images, which leads to more time and a relatively higher cost.